


Pineapple Express

by SkyHighDisco



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, The Fracas (Top Gear)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26512918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyHighDisco/pseuds/SkyHighDisco
Summary: An attempt at 'the Fracas'. Jeremy seeks refuge in James' house.
Relationships: Jeremy Clarkson & James May
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Pineapple Express

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, I had to get this one out of my system.
> 
> If any of this information is incorrect, regarding real-life ages, places, timeline, or information, please let me know. I might’ve missed something during research.

The identical police cars circle the corner, strawberry-smoothie covered windscreen of one telling it apart from the other. One is driven by a baddie. The other by two guys high on skunk.

“I can’t see! The Slushee!” cries James Franco.

“Turn on the wipers!” Seth Rogen screams from the back, hands cuffed behind his back by the previous encounter with a literally sizeable female officer.

James Franco, probably less panicked than he’s supposed to be due to his blood fluid having been replaced by weed, tries as he’s told.

“It’s not working!” he squeaks, reminding in that moment ridiculously of Richard Hammond.

“Well kick out the window, isn’t that what they do?”

“I don’t know, how do you drive with one foot?”

“I don’t know!”

James Franco pulls one from under the wheel either way, and kicks.

His foot comes right through the windscreen and gets stuck there. “Ow! Fuck, I think I pulled my groin!”

On the couch, James dissolves into an eruption of barking laughter, leaning forward, eyes screwing themselves shut. Jeremy, to his left, would usually join him, maybe lean on James for leverage as laughter compresses his stomach muscles, disabling him from breathing, and remain leaned on him until he somewhat recovered.

Now his laughter is small, brief and purely instinctive. It’s been since the movie began. It’s been since Jeremy’s appeared at his door. It’s been since Jeremy’s life crumbled to pieces.

“Why didn’t we do a thing like this?” is what James almost asks, but holds back just in time. He doesn’t dare, realizes he shouldn’t, and then understands he already has several answers to his own question. It would only serve to initiate a conversation, but one both James and Jeremy definitely wanted to avoid.

So instead he reaches for the bottle on the glass table. “More wine?” he asks, not exactly carefully, but with a definitely gentled touch to his voice.

Jeremy lightly shakes his head with a tiny, grateful smile. “Thank you, no.”

It wasn’t entirely honest, that smile. Took too much effort, just for James’ sake.

Sarah was scheduled to go to Moscow that week, and before she left, she told him, without questions, without analysis, without judgement which James had so bitterly held until now: “Keep your door open for him. If he wants to come, let him. If he wants to talk about it, hear him out and if he doesn’t, don’t push it. Let him drink if he wants, but don’t let it become the tool for his misery. Just _be_ there for him, James”, she gives a small, sad smile. “You, Richard and Andy are all he has left now.”

James seals all the gratitude and appreciation for this woman in a deep, single kiss he would always give before either of them departed for a big trip. Only this time, he makes sure the two distinct emotions are there. If there was a more sensible, unselfish woman existing in this world, James would like to see a finger pointed.

Jeremy does call, already the next afternoon, when Sarah is well in Russia. Apologizes, and even before he does, James knows he’s already forgiven him. He says yes, of course. Makes a quick trip to the store to grab two bottles of _Merlot_ , hears Sarah’s voice in his head, and puts one back without missing a beat.

It’s about ten in the evening when he opens the door to the ring of a bell, knowing what to expect, but the sight of Jeremy surprises and terrifies the life out of him either way. Disheveled thin hair, unkempt, grown-out stubble, fatigued, tortured, sunken eyes under the black-purple bags sown in by the insomniac monster.

James realizes how much he’s missed him when Jeremy wordlessly pulls him into a hug. Realizes all is forgiven when his own arms go up to encircle Jeremy’s broad back without thinking and he holds him with everything he has. He doesn’t care if they might’ve stood there for half an hour, but when Jeremy finally pulls back he smiles thinly, weakly, but genuinely before making his way toward the guest room without a single word.

James lets him. Goes to sleep not long after.

In retrospect, James thinks, it doesn’t matter how angry they were at him at first. It’s not fair, he thinks while scenes on the TV dance without focus in front of his eyes, for life to stomp and beat Jeremy up senseless in only months.

After he's lost Isle of Man, the nervousness started. A knot in his stomach tightening since it has first formed when he and Francie had started living separately. Then the breakup and his mother’s death happening almost consequently. And then the cancer fright. The one that made an already alcohol and cigarettes-poisoned Jeremy sink even further.

* * *

“It could be malignant, or not, we can’t tell from the surface. But whatever it is, I think you should definitely have it checked.”

“Is that the reason why I keep having these nightmares?” splutters Jeremy, sleep-deprived, twitchy and edgy. “About an old man with no teeth chasing me? Is that why I keep hearing noises in the middle of the night that nobody else does? It is, isn't it?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Clarkson“, the doctor says, but the apology in his voice sounds automatic. “I’m not a psychiatr—”

“He keeps calling me Unlucky Thirteen”, Jeremy continued rapidly, hands clutching his knees, back rigid and sore, throat getting tighter and tighter. “There is nothing about me that is thirteen. I'm 54 years old, my address doesn't have either 1 or 3 in it, None of my kids are thirteen anymore and I don’t have thirteen cars. What does that mean, doctor?”

“Mr. Clarkson—“

“He turns into a fox sometimes”, Jeremy says, silent tears spilling over. “White and silver, with mangy fur. But he does have teeth then. Rows of tusk-like teeth and a too-big grin and huge eyes like headlights. He stares at me and doesn’t stop even if I beg him screaming.”

“Mr. Clarkson, I don’t—“

“Do you think it’s Death?” Jeremy mildly chokes. “It takes many shapes, after all. Do you think it’s come to gloat and mock me before taking me away?”

“Mr. Clarkson”, the doctor raises his voice now, sharpens it like a forged blade, slicing Jeremy into a timid, frightened silence. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you with that. It is not mine to know what your dreams might mean. If you wish to know about details concerning them, consult our psychologist. She is a floor down.”

* * *

It wasn’t malignant.

It was nothing.

But the loss of Top Gear was probably — no, not probably, _without a doubt_ — the hardest blow of them all. For 27 years of his life, through good and bad, work was the only thing that has kept Jeremy sane. Top Gear _was_ Jeremy and vice versa. Jeremy not figuratively _lived_ his life on the stage. It completed him and became a part of him.

Being so forcefully taken away from him, like a piece of art ripped out of the artist’s hand after they had spent decades perfecting it, tore Jeremy apart. It was this blow that had a collective realization of all misfortunes crashing into him like earthquake debris.

Anger flows out of James even more. Every affect has a manifestation, and Jeremy’s, unfortunately — _“you sodding idiot, do you realize what you have done?! Has the thought of_ us _even crossed your mind when you took a swing?”_ — came in form of a punch.

James wished to blame him. He had, until his own kettle hadn’t whistled down to silence. After that, he wished to hate him. He insisted on it.

Until he saw Jeremy in his doorway.

Poof.

All gone.

Jeremy’s been here three days already. He doesn’t leave and James doesn’t ask him to. He doesn’t converse with James much, doesn’t really eat, doesn’t sleep. James can hear him move around the house in the night, trying to be as quiet as possible, counting on James being a heavy sleeper, but not counting on the concern which thinned out May’s sleep because he doesn’t know it. He mostly sits in an armchair during the day with a distant, glazed-over, pensive gaze and strokes one of the cats in his lap.

On the third evening, James forces him into watching ‘ _Pineapple Express_ ’. Jeremy doesn’t object. In fact, he doesn’t really react.

Jeremy doesn’t say it. Jeremy doesn’t have to say it. He would _never_ say it, no matter the circumstances. 

_Please don’t leave me, James. If I stay alone in the dark, I’ll start to think. And if I start to think, I won’t be able to stop until I think myself bonkers and go completely mental. Please, James, stay with me. Don’t leave me alone in the dark._

James doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.

The movie’s final scene comes up and something about the trio bantering, conversation utterly stupid and pointless, and yet so impactful and pure, clutches at James’ chest so tightly that he is glad he doesn’t have the glass in his hand or it’d spill all over the carpet. It was like the scene was made by taking all of their pub hangouts and breakfasts in hotels and re-scripted into this movie with some Americans to act it out, making them act solely on well-being and complete sincerity. Backed up by skunk and the fact that the movie was completely bonkers. But it nevertheless makes James’ eyes close in order to stop watering.

He looks over at the now dozed-off Jeremy on his couch. Unkempt, insomnolent, uncaring Jeremy. James reaches over to his other side for a brightly-coloured quilt — which Jeremy will definitely half-heartedly frown over in the morning, accusing James of covering him in such an antique overspread — which he somehow manages to unfold and gently spread over the older man without standing up. He feared the distinct movement would wake Jeremy up and throw him into a verbal panic attack James knows he’s trying to avoid bursting into since he first got here.

As it is, he doesn’t even stir and James leans back, observing Jeremy with soft, careful, concerned eyes. If his chest weren’t visibly rising and small sounds emitted from his nose which James knew would eventually grow into proper snores, James would’ve thought Jeremy was dead by the poor sight of the man.

He needs to call Richard in the morning when Jeremy is in the bathroom or kitchen, or outside, or anywhere out of earshot. Explain to him first that he needs to stop being a sulky teenage girl, man up and deal with the situation as it is and forgive the man because he would’ve done the same for you, Hammond, so stop being so fucking bitter, you selfish little bastard.

Then they need to freshen him up, make him bathe, shave, drink water and hide the cigarettes, at least for a day or two. Then they ought to jump into a car, all three of them and drive off somewhere, out, where no one will know they’re there, at least for a day — to take Jeremy’s mind off everything. What they need is a good, old-fashioned road trip. North to Scotland, perhaps.

To remind him to start living again.

Against his better judgement, James leans in, pressing his forehead against Jeremy’s shoulder, eyes closed, determination in voice palpable.

“It’ll be fine, you big oaf”, he says firmly in a low voice, convincing himself as well. “We will get through this. All three of us together. I will not let the black dog take you.”

Having said it made James’ heart rest easier. They will be fine. They always have been. Some doors close, others open, things don’t last forever and all that. But as long as they stay together, nothing on Earth is strong enough to break them.

Jeremy suddenly shifts and, with a soft hum, turns his head and buries his nose in James’ hair and James doesn’t even think of recoiling. His back and neck will complain endlessly for three days in a row after this, but he is willing to suffer through it. Because that’s what friends do.

So he shifts until he is more comfortable on Jeremy’s shoulder, feeling himself nodding off as well.

And when the end credits are rolling and Seth Rogen, James Franco and Seth McBride are done being high, American versions of Jeremy, Richard and he, James leaves it on, letting the sound of the TV shove him into a cradle of sleep. And because he is half-asleep already he can’t be sure if the breathed ‘thank you’ he hears from above is just in his head or not.


End file.
